Improving isolation and loneliness

Our award funded transport for their monthly Get Together sessions for older people aged 55+ in Tower Hamlets. Around four sessions were supported by this grant, each bringing together 30-40 members for a shared lunch and a group activity at the Bernie Cameron Community Centre, Mile End. 

They hired 3-4 taxis per session each carrying 3-4 people. Transport was provided only for the most vulnerable of clients who were unable for physical or emotional reasons to use public transport. Tower Hamlets has no community transport provider of its own, so they have a partnership with a neighbouring community transport service in Waltham Forest, which they used for a summer trip when they visited Southend. 

Their feedback report to us highlighted how this door-to-door service was so essential. Travelling together as a group, with drivers who understand the patience and care older people need, is part of what makes the Get Togethers work. For many of their members, the Get Together is the only occasion in the month when they leave their flat in the company of other people. Each Get Together starts with light refreshments, some gentle chair based exercise, then a lunch, followed by a game of bingo or an arts and craft session that generates mental stimulation. The bingo is extremely popular.

Confidence had been rebuilt and members who needed prompting to speak in early sessions now suggest venues, decide who sits with whom, and gently flag when a regular has missed a session — that informal mutual care is the most valuable thing the funding has produced. In a borough ranked first in England for predicted loneliness among the over-65s and that is precisely what they are trying to create.

Without the transport, none of it happens.